Recently, the applications of web cameras (PC Cam) to capture images of documents have experienced great growth and are rapidly gaining in popularity. For holding the document to be shot by the web camera, a document holder conforming to the web camera has been developed.
FIG. 1A is a schematic perspective view illustrating an electronic device having a business card holder according to the prior art, in which the business card holder is stored within the electronic device. FIG. 1B is a schematic perspective view illustrating the electronic device of FIG. 1A, in which the business card holder is withdrawn from the electronic device. An example of the electronic device 10 of FIGS. 1A and 1B is a notebook computer. The notebook computer 10 principally comprises a screen casing 101 and a host casing 102. A web camera 103 is arranged on an upper edge of the screen casing 101. The business card holder 104 is integrated into the host casing 102 and storable within the host casing 102 (as shown in FIG. 1A). For shooting a selected area of a business card 11 by the web camera 103, the business card holder 104 is firstly withdrawn from the host casing 102 (as shown in FIG. B) and then the business card 11 is placed in an elongate recess 104a of the business card holder 104. After the relative spatial correlation (i.e. the focal length) between the web camera 103 and the business card 11 is properly adjusted, the image of the business card 11 can be captured by the web camera 103.
FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view illustrating another conventional business card holder for use in an electronic device. The electronic device is for example a notebook computer. The business card holder 21 of FIG. 2 is externally attached onto an upper edge of the notebook computer. The business card holder 21 principally comprises a holder body 211, multiple extension arms 212, a fixing element 213 and a business card fixing recess 214. These extension arms 212 are selectively folded or unfolded with respect to the holder body 211. Depending on the desired shooting distances, the overall extended lengths of the extension arms 212 are adjustable. As shown in FIG. 2, the extension arms 212 are all unfolded to have a maximum extended length.
Through the fixing element 213, the business card holder 21 is hung on the upper edge of a screen casing 201 of the electronic device 20 (e.g. a notebook computer). Due to the fixing force and the supporting force respectively provided by the fixing element 213 and the extension arms 212, the holder body 211 is substantially maintained in parallel with the screen casing 201 of the notebook computer 20. As a consequence, a shooting angle is defined between the holder body 211 and a web camera (not shown) that is arranged on the upper edge of the screen casing 201. After a business card (not shown) is placed in the business card fixing recess 214, the image of the business card can be captured by the web camera.
In the above discussions, these two conventional business card holders are cooperated with built-in web cameras of the notebook computer. Until now, the document holder for use with a self-contained portable camera device to hold the document has not yet been disclosed. Therefore, there is a need of providing a novel document holder for use with a self-contained portable camera device.